C/EI/14. E-business and the supply chain: Illustrations from the airline industry

This paper outlines how e-business has helped organisations to reduce costs in their supply chains and supply networks. It draws on examples from the airline industry to illustrate the benefits that supply chain management and e-business have brought. The paper is broken into two main sections. The first outlines the change in the approach of supply chain management sine the 1960s and provides the reader with key definitions, including: e-business, e-commerce, the supply chain, supply chain management (SCM), upstream (buy-side e-commerce) and downstream (sell-side e-commerce) SCM and the push and pull models of SCM. The second section highlights the evolution of SCM through four key stages, which organisations have adopted to differing extents. The key aspects of SCM in each stage are outlined and examples from the airline industry are provided where appropriate.